Chapter 33
33
FOOTBALL BEACH, NEAR KASSIOPI
‘Are you absolutely 100 per cent sure there’s a beach here?’
It was Siobhan asking Janette and if her friend hadn’t said the words, Molly had seriously been thinking of saying them herself. They had walked along the main road out of Kassiopi, keeping close to the scrub at the sides as trucks and tourist coaches thundered past them, until they had arrived at a football pitch. It was right by the water, astroturf surrounded by a metal fence, presumably so the ball wouldn’t find the sea or the road, and now Janette was leading them down a track to the left, through rocky undergrowth, claiming there to be a paradise beach at the bottom of it.
‘Of course I’m certain!’ Janette snapped. ‘I don’t have memory loss. Vaggelis took me here.’
‘Oh, so it’s one of “those” beaches,’ Siobhan stated.
‘One of what beaches?’ Janette asked, forging ahead.
‘We don’t need any details,’ Molly said quickly. Except details were exactly what she wanted, just not the unclothed kind.
‘But you’d want to know if the timing worked out, right?’ Siobhan whispered to Molly.
‘Siobhan,’ Molly said, warningly.
‘What are you whispering about?’ Janette asked. ‘You’ve not said very much about your inheritance today. Is everything still on track with that?’
‘Well, I guess so. I’m waiting to hear from Katerina about the next phase but… I met the cat today.’
‘Aww! Was it cute?’ Siobhan wanted to know. ‘We could use it in some Insta promos. People love pets in advertising.’
‘She’s basically feral,’ Molly said. ‘Unless your name is Christos. Then she’s happy to have all her parts rubbed.’
‘ Really! ’ Siobhan said, laughing.
‘And here we are!’ Janette announced. ‘Paradise!’
Molly looked up then and the breath caught in her throat. Bright white pebbles, the water a myriad of colours from crystal clear through aquamarine to the deepest navy further out, the sea shushing up onto the stones and back again, not another soul to be seen.
‘There’s no one else around!’ Siobhan exclaimed first.
‘I told you tourists don’t really come here and it’s so beautiful! Back in the day, Vaggelis challenged me to swim out to the fish farm.’
Molly looked again at the scene and there, a little way out, were those round pods she had passed just earlier today with Christos when they had seen the dolphins.
‘What’s a fish farm?’ Siobhan asked.
‘They put fish in those ring things and they fatten them up and they sell them,’ Janette elaborated.
‘We saw dolphins near there earlier,’ Molly said, putting a towel down on the stones.
‘Did you!’ Janette exclaimed. ‘Vaggelis always told me there were dolphins here, but I thought it was a story he’d made up.’
‘Who is “we”? As if we didn’t know,’ Siobhan teased. ‘Wait, did you swim to there from the harbour?’ She put her towel down next to Molly’s.
‘No, we took our boat out,’ Molly said, sitting down and taking off her sandals.
‘You went out on The Greek Dynamo !’ Janette exclaimed. ‘It still works?’
‘It does,’ Molly said. ‘I even had a turn driving it and I can drop the anchor and I know what a fender is.’
‘Wow,’ Siobhan said, looking straight at her. ‘What a good teacher Christos must be.’
‘You could make it into another business,’ Janette said, putting her towel down too and dropping onto it. ‘You could Airbnb the apartment once it’s done up and you could get someone to captain the boat, take people over to Paxos for the day or something. I don’t know what licences you would need but that was always something Vaggelis thought about.’
‘I don’t know,’ Molly said, getting sun cream out of her bag. ‘I only own half of everything, so it’s not only my decision, and I really need to concentrate on my make-up if I’m going to level it up and turn it into the business I want.’
‘But don’t you think this opportunity has come to you for a reason?’ Janette asked.
‘Well, seeing as I don’t even know why this opportunity has come my way, it’s a bit difficult to suddenly change the course of my business life because of it,’ Molly said. What exactly was her mum saying?
‘But these things are tangible, real and serious prospects that have been gifted to you,’ Janette continued.
‘I know! And why have they been gifted to me?’ Molly asked. ‘Why would someone I only met once when I was in nappies give me half of everything he owned?’
‘I am going to go in for a swim,’ Siobhan said quickly, getting up and looking like she was desperate to escape the conversation.
‘I might join you,’ Janette said, looking like she was going to get up.
‘No!’ Molly exclaimed as Siobhan hot-footed it down the stones and away. ‘Mum, I am really struggling here. And I need answers because none of this makes sense.’
‘Why does everything have to make sense? What happened to taking things at face value? Why do people want to question good fortune these days? You don’t find a pound coin on the street and question your worthiness for it, you pick it up and put it in your pocket and feel glad.’
‘But, Mum, why aren’t you wondering why your ex-boyfriend has left me his things?’
‘I do wonder,’ Janette told her. ‘But what answers can we get? He’s not here any more.’
‘But there’s only one logical explanation,’ Molly continued. ‘He left me those things because I was special to him. Because… I am his daughter!’
‘Molly…’
Was that all she was getting? Her name tailing off into the humidity? It wasn’t good enough.
‘Why aren’t you saying something?’ Molly asked.
‘Because I don’t know what to say to you. You think I know why Vaggelis made you a beneficiary?’
‘Yes, I do,’ Molly stated boldly. ‘I think you know exactly why. Because I think he’s my dad.’
Janette shook her head.
‘And still you’re not saying anything!’
‘Because I told you before! I told you Vaggelis Vlachos is not your father! There! Happy now? Again? Or do I need to say it a third time?’
‘Then, if he really isn’t my dad, tell me who is!’
‘I’ve told you I don’t know!’
‘So it could be Vaggelis?!’
‘No! I said no!’
Molly just stared at her mum then, looking for something in her expression that would tell her she was being lied to. She didn’t want to see it, she didn’t want to think that her mum would deliberately mislead her but that’s what it had always felt like throughout her childhood.
‘But, he has to be my dad,’ Molly stated. ‘He has to be.’ The tears were in her eyes before she even realised.
‘Molly, I didn’t meant to shout, it’s just difficult and… oh, Molly, love, don’t cry.’ She put an arm around Molly’s shoulders and drew her close. ‘Sweetheart, I’m as shocked as you that Vaggelis has left you all those lovely things. And all I can tell you is that he was just such a wonderful man.’ She sighed. ‘He was kind and funny… and loving and giving. Why does he need more of a reason to leave you gifts other than his generous, beautiful nature?’
Molly shook her head. ‘I don’t know. It’s just not how people usually behave.’
Janette laughed then. ‘He would be pleased about that. Vaggelis liked to think of himself as a bit of a maverick. I think he’d enjoy all this air of mystery we’ve brought to Corfu.’
Molly groaned. ‘Suddenly having the responsibility of someone’s things to do the right thing with is difficult.’
‘You can’t think of it like that,’ Janette said. ‘Whatever his reason, Vaggelis left them for you. And he was very detailed in who he wanted which things to go to. I’m certain if he wanted his possessions to be used in any particular way he would have written notes about that too.’
‘It might have been helpful,’ Molly said, picking up a stone and rolling it around in her palm. ‘Because then Christos and I wouldn’t have the decisions to make.’
‘Well,’ Janette began. ‘Perhaps that was part of his plan too.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Perhaps Vaggelis thought you and Christos having to make joint decisions about things was going to be good for the two of you, you know, doing things together.’
There was no mistaking her mum’s tone now or the glimmer in her eyes.
‘Don’t look at me like that. This is not match-making from beyond the grave.’
‘I said nothing,’ Janette said.
‘You didn’t need to use words.’
‘But he’s so good-looking, Molly, and well-groomed and well-spoken and?—’
‘And also has a business he’s very busy with,’ Molly said.
‘So you have things in common too.’
‘Mum.’
‘Well, when was the last time you had a boyfriend?’
‘Not sure they exist, the way they used to at least.’
‘Everyone’s too busy being busy.’
‘Something like that.’
‘Vaggelis used to say we should make time to be busy doing nothing. That nothing was one of the most important things people could do. At the time I thought it sounded like something someone very lazy or very stupid would say, but the older I get the more I realise that actually he was very wise.’
Molly mused on that sentence as she looked out to sea. There was not a sound but the ones nature was providing – the water lapping up onto the stones, the buzz of cicadas in the trees – even Siobhan was doing a very silent backstroke a few metres out.
‘So, if I now also lie down, relax on these pebbles and do absolutely nothing, will that make me as wise as Vaggelis?’
‘Let’s find out,’ Janette suggested, untying the sarong around her swimsuit. ‘Before Siobhan comes back. I love that girl, but she talks more than I do.’
Molly laughed. It was true. She pulled off her sundress, adjusted her bikini top then laid back, closed her eyes and let the Greek sunshine warm her right through to her bones.
Then her phone made a noise and a buzz.
‘That sound may as well be someone with a chainsaw,’ Janette remarked with a tut.
‘I’ll just check it in case it’s business-related and then, I promise, I will turn it onto silent.’ Molly remained as prostrate as she could, pulled her bag towards her and rooted for her phone. Shielding her eyes from the sun, she squinted at the screen. It was a text. From Christos. She pressed to read it.
You are invited to dinner at Maria’s tonight. Bring your mother and Siobhan.
Wait. Was that it? Was there another message coming? It was a very direct invitation and an order. And this was coming only a few hours after he had asked her out and she had told him she was busy. She wasn’t sure she liked the tone at all. Another text arrived and she read it quickly.
Please Molly. I need your help.
That was a very different tone – if you could get tone from text messages.
‘Is everything OK, love?’ Janette asked.
‘Yes,’ she said.
What to do? If her mum and Siobhan were invited too then she would also be spending time with them as well as him. I need your help …
‘Mum, do you want to go to Old Perithia tonight?’ Molly asked. ‘It’s a?—’
‘Ooo, the little abandoned village. I’ve never actually been there but it’s meant to be lovely.’
‘What’s happening?’ It was Siobhan, suddenly out of the water and tentatively looking for the sanctuary of her towel as if the stones on the beach were made of lava.
‘We’re going to Old Perithia tonight!’ Janette announced. ‘You’d best wear flat shoes, Siobhan. Lots of ruins and cobbles if I remember from the pictures.’
‘Is there wine?’ Siobhan asked, sitting down on her towel and stretching out.
‘Isn’t there always in Greece?’ Janette asked.
‘Sounds perfect,’ Siobhan answered.
It seemed a decision had been made. Molly typed a text out.
OK.
The reply came quick.
Thank you